When was interscope records founded

J immy Iovine is grimacing. Still, Iovine looks pained. Various other Interscope-related albums turn up at Nos. He takes another taste of pasta. This is where Iovine does his thing, playing some of his favorite new music for visitors — loudly. Most record executives are not so excited about sharing the music of their latest signees. W hile the music industry scratches its collective head, trying to figure out what caused the business slump of and , Interscope has established itself as the little label that could.

But not everyone is cheering. With ties to such labels as Death Row home to the late Shakur and Nothing the label of industrial shock rockers Marilyn Manson , Interscope has come under more than its share of unfriendly fire.

Iovine, slight of build and still boyishly handsome at 43, is a disarming charmer who speaks quietly in a voice that has retained its Brooklyn bite despite years of living large in Malibu, Calif. Take away hot lunch. Take away welfare. Cut social programs. Nice, increasingly rich people. At other record-company parties around town tonight, worried employees are no doubt muttering under their breath about lost revenues and downsizing. But here at Interscope, there are actually extra servings of comfort and joy.

Bonus checks were handed out earlier in the week, and perhaps as a result, many of the employees are grinning broadly. Others are conspicuous by their absence. Trent Reznor is back home, and the Wallflowers are on the road. Dre , who attended last year and recently started the Interscope-distributed Aftermath label, is not to be seen.

At this power table, the discussion centers on the controversies du jour. When Iovine tires of the issue of whether Interscope is responsible for the moral decline of Western civilization, talk turns to the record-business slump. We are an industry. We sell a product. We have to excite the people who we sell the shit to. We are trying to keep kids interested in music.

In this regard, Iovine sees the industry as having made a huge mistake by turning over the reins of power from music people to marketing types. Why break up a winning team? I trust Jimmy with my life, and he feels the same about me. As the party winds down, Iovine addresses the troops, saluting many of those who have been there from the beginning and sharing the thrill of victory with his team.

Sadly for Gerardo and his family, it was not to be. Additionally, The Darkroom operates as marketing and business development consultant for Interscope Records. Dreamville was established by Jermaine Cole, better known as J. Cole, the Grammy-nominated artist and producer. We are the label of the connected age. The creators of stories. Keeping a pulse on our community while exploring new sounds, new visuals and new ways to authentically and genuinely connect with all people, around the world.

Artists on the label include Imagine Dragons and Skylar Grey. By Interscope had well established itself as a renegade company willing to take on artists, no matter how outrageous or controversial, that other labels would not touch.

While its reputation had garnered a great deal of profit for the company--well into the hundreds of millions by it had also in turn put Interscope in a high-profile position which, given the political climate of the time, came at a cost to the company's stability. Indeed, almost from the company's inception it had been subject to political upbraiding of the most public sort. In , after Interscope produced and distributed Tupac Shakur's '2Pacalypse Now,' an album which would later be blamed in part, by some, for police shootings in Texas.

At the time, Vice-President Dan Quayle announced to the press that 'There is absolutely no reason for a record like this to be published by a responsible corporation. It has no place in our society. Had Interscope not been half-owned by the corporate giant Time Warner, a company which had to answer to both the financial and moral concerns of its shareholders, it might not have found itself in the middle of an increasingly mercurial and divided public debate in the middle of the decade.

However, that is exactly what happened to the company in , when a political activist named C. In September of that year, Tucker attended a shareholder's meeting in New York, and there, with several members of the press in front of her and conservative leader William Bennett by her side, she made a minute speech denouncing Time Warner's involvement in the production of gangsta' rap, taking pains to point out the corporation's ownership of the notorious Interscope.

Tucker placed Time Warner's part-ownership of Interscope at the heart of an increasingly heated battle, the climax of which occurred later that same year when Interscope announced its intentions to release the much-hyped album by Tha' Dogg Pound called 'Dogg Food.

Time Warner grew increasingly uncomfortable under such highly-publicized negative limelight, particularly when the prominent conservative politician Bob Dole became involved, calling the music Time Warner was producing 'nightmares of depravity. Time Warner could not censor what Interscope chose to produce without breaking a legal contract signed by the two companies. Interscope did release 'Dogg Food,' and in doing so forced Time Warner's hand; the latter bowed out of its 50 percent stake in Interscope at the end of the year, despite the fact that the company was bringing in tremendous amounts of revenue.

Tucker declared a political and moral triumph upon hearing of the sale, claiming that 'It's a great victory for our children and America's future, and it does show me that Time Warner does have a corporate soul.

Dre, speaking to U. And I won't have to deal with Papa Warner. Dre was right. Interscope continued to not only survive, but thrive. In the company had songs at the top four spots on Billboard's charts, an unmatched record established in , 20 years earlier, by Columbia records.

The company was flourishing in genres spanning the gamut of popular music and was successfully involved in the distribution of such lucrative labels as Death Row and Nothing Records.